#231 Stephie Key – the political It girl cometh

It’s official, we have a budding fashionista on our hands in the form of Prime Minister John Key’s 15 year old daughter Stephie Key. She’s been known to wear wildly clashing colours and to design her own clothes, but at Wednesday night’s Prime Ministerial swearing in ceremony, she opted for something a little more tried and tested: current season Karen Walker.

The dress comes from Walker’s Spring/Summer 08/09 collection that was recently shown at New Zealand Fashion Week. When asked if she’d known about Stephie Key wearing her dress or if a stylist had requested it, Karen Walker replied:

“Yes this is one of our dresses. From current s/s 08/09. I had seen Stephie wearing it on the news last night actually and thought she looked fantastic! What a brilliant family photo this is too. I don’t know where she bought it from but I think she’s more likely to have bought it herself than to have been styled don’t you think?”

Styled with a big black bow, heavy rimmed geek-chic spectacles and bright red lips, Stephie Key definitely stands out as the hipster in the Key family – even next to Mr Key’s peacocky fluro blue tie. All the colours go against her previous colourful emo tendencies, though there is still something of the My Chemical Romance listener about her, possibly during their Helena period? But the smile on her face suggests she won’t be wallowing in a pool of self loathing anytime soon.

Although Stephie Key has denied requests for an interview (Isaac tried to get her on The Seen but that sort of thing is most likely closely guarded by the political advisers), she has been friendly, funny, well spoken and forthcoming in her emails.

As for her outfit on election night, here’s what she had to say:

“I can let you know that on election night I was wearing a Mary Quant dress and jacket and my shoes are fuschia winklepickers and an English brand called Underground makes them.”

Most of you will know Mary Quant as being credited with inventing the modern day mini skirt – which caused furore at the time – so looks like we might have a fashion revolutionary strutting the Beehive halls!